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Recently, a few people have asked me if it’s worth it to get an iPhone. It’s a personal decision for sure, but here’s an idea of how I use my iPhone in any given day. See if you can tell what the answer is for ME! I’ve listed in parentheses the iPhone applications I use.

5:30am - I awake to the sound of soft harps. (Clock)

5:35am – I do a quick check of my personal email (Mail), work email (iNotes), news (USA Today), and check the weather to see what I should wear and if I should bring an umbrella ella ella (WeatherBug).

6:15am - I listen to podcasts on the way to work. If it’s a Monday, you can be sure I’m listening to This American Life with Ira Glass (iPod).

7:00am - Once I get to work, I listen to a personalized music selection online while I get set up and plan my workday. (Pandora)

10:00am – During a meeting I might hear about a new technology so I check out the latest tech news. (CNET)

11:00am – While in the break room, someone asks a question I don’t know the answer to. While others sit and speculate, I pop out my iPhone and find the answer lickity-split. (Google)

11:30am – I might get a new client on my Meals on Wheels route, so I plug in their address and have my iPhone give me turn by turn directions to their house. (Maps)

12:30pm – Upon return to the office, I notice something weird that I must take a picture of. (Camera)

12:32pm – I upload said picture to twitpic via my iPhone Twitter client. (TwitterFon)

1:00pm – I receive a message via the Facebook iPhone app that my colleague/friend finally gets to bring her baby home from the hospital after being in ICU for several weeks! (Facebook)

2:00pm - I connect with several former colleagues who are looking for jobs. (LinkedIn)

5:00pm - As I leave the office parking lot, I hear a song on the stereo, and I can’t for the life of me remember the artist. I let my iPhone listen to the song and after 10 seconds of listening, it tells me who the artist is, what album, etc. (Shazam)

5:30pm – I call my husband to see if he needs me to pick up anything on the way home from work. (Phone) Yes, it’s true. The iPhone can actually be used as a telephone.

5:45pm - I get home and pull out the fixins’ for dinner. I follow the recipe using my iPhone. (BigOven)

7:00pm – I decide to practice my flute for a few minutes, and I make sure I’m in tune. (StayInTune)

7:30pm – I get totally grossed out by my flute cleaning rag which is dirty, so I pull out my iPhone and purchase a new one online. (Amazon)

7:45pm – I help my kids with their homework, and rather than look stupid by admitting I don’t know the answer to their questions, I discreetly look up answers on my iPhone. (Wikipanion)

8:00pm – I go on a walk around the neighborhood, and since it’s dark (and we can’t seem to keep a working flashlight in the house), I use my iPhone. (myLite)

8:45pm - I check to see if tonight’s episode of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” is a repeat. (i.TV)

10:30pm - I read a chapter of the latest book I’ve downloaded from Amazon.com. (Kindle)

11:00pm – I listen to “Rain with Thunder” as I drift off to sleep and dream about how I will use my iPhone tomorrow. (Ambiance)

I’ve run across some pretty interesting iPhone web apps over the last several months, so I thought I’d recommend some on my blog in case any of my fellow iPhone addicts want to try them out. Here are a few to get started…

hiHome – This is a cool way to see how much your neighbor’s house is worth! Oh, I suppose there are other more honorable ways to use this tool, but I’ve had fun being nosy. The site is an iPhone optimized version of Zillow, a real estate site that gives valuations for properties all over the US.

Stitcher – Ever get in the car in the morning only to realize you forgot to sync your iPhone. No need to miss the latest news podcasts. Stitcher lets you listen to streaming news and entertainment from your iPhone. I listen to the Silicon Valley Professional station which reads me the headlines to blogs like TechCrunch, WSJ Tech news, and CNET daily tech news. It’s a real person reading too…not an electronic voice.

iSkyGaze – Although I haven’t used this much yet, it’s an awesome idea. This application provides information on where and when constellations, planets, galaxies and other objects will be viewable from your location, as well as offering other cool facts about what you’re seeing.

iRuler – Super useful! I don’t need a ruler often, but when I do, I never have one handy. Now I do! iRuler turns my iPhone into a ruler, albeit a pretty short one — 2.5 in (or 6.5 cm) to be exact!

Many more to come!!

I’ve tried various personal productivity methodologies in the past. Oftentimes, like diets, I stick to them for a while, but then “fall off the wagon.” As I reach the end of year, I’m thinking about how I can start fresh in 2008, so I’m exploring my options.

Based on what I’ve heard in various podcasts and read in blogs and articles, I’ve decided to try out some Getting Things Done (GTD) techniques. I was intrigued after watching Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero presentation he gave at Google. I’m not going to go into great detail here about the system, but in short, the idea is to process your e-mail to the point where you get your inbox down to zero every day. This doesn’t mean that you respond to every e-mail, but that you “action” every item as quickly as possible so that you can more easily focus on the items that are most important.  He recommends identifying 5 folders into which you organize your incoming mail. He uses: Delete, Delegate, Respond, Defer, and Do. As I listened to the podcast, I realized there was no way I could effectively “process” my current inbox without considerable pain. Right now I have 5189 documents (and counting). The payoff of slogging through my current inbox probably wouldn’t be worth it. Oh stop the gasping! It includes enormous amounts of non-actionable items…newsletters, “who’s out” notifications, etc.

I’m declaring e-mail bankruptcy! I’m moving my current inbox to an “old” folder and creating four folders: 1 – Important and Urgent, 2 – Important but Not Urgent, 3 – Not Important but Urgent, 4 – Not Important or Urgent. Sound familiar? I’m combining Seven Habits of Highly Effective People methodology with GTD. I’ll process my e-mail into the 4 folders and hopefully get to myself to focus on quadrant 2 items (important not urgent). Eventually, fewer important urgent items (i.e. “firedrills”) will come my way because I will have prevented them. That probably sounds more confusing than it really is….but I promise, it makes perfect sense to me.

P.S. Of course I’ll be using the awesome features of Lotus Notes 8 to increase my effectiveness throughout this process. Interestly, David Allen, the creator of GTD, uses Lotus Notes!